February 28, 2011

Today we arrive at the port of Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos at 7 am and spend the day enjoying the sun, sea and water among other sites! There are also extra excursions that you can purchase and one of them is scuba and under sea diving. Won't this look great with some pictures below!? wow!

Here is a wonderful two page layout for a mini that Jamie put together for your enjoyment and details to make your very own!

Be sure to send the love by leaving a comment.

SweetSassyDiva

For todays challenge the SweetSassyDiva DT was asked to create a 2 page mini album layout (5 3/4 x 8 3/4) that had a beach theme.. we get extra credit for using the same colors as the color challenge (bright blue, neon green, hot pink, yellow, orange).

I used Life's A Beach to create my layouts.

For the first page I cut the green cardstock down to 6.5x4.5 for a photo mat for a 4x6 photo. I cut the title for the scuba diver (under the sea) at 2 inches in blue and then I used a blue chalk ink to make it a little darker than the background, since I used the same blue for both. The seahorse boarder is cut at 1 inch and I cut off one of the extra seahorses so that it fit correctly to the page. I adhered the photo mat and the seahorse boarder. And for the title I used blue glitter glue to cover just the words and the bubbles and I only adhered it at the bottom so that the picture could slide in the picture.

(1st page)

(close up of title)

For the 2nd page I got a tad more complicated. I cut out the seahorse from the card setting at 5 inches and cut off the back side of the card. I got a green piece of cardstock and cut it down to about 8 inches x 4 3/4 inches, folded it in half and dabbed some blue ink on the outside to give it a little color. I then adhered the seahorse cover to the front of the green folded paper and adhered the whole thing down (I plan to use it for journaling but it could easily fit a smaller pic & journaling). I added some blue glitter glue to the background like waves.. and pink glitter glue to the seahorse and sea grass on the card area as well as a google eye. The yellow octopus was cut at 2 inches and I cut out the orange at 2 inches also on layer 1. The eyes and mouth are scribbles 3d paint. The little pink shell on the inside of the card is 1 inch from the Create A Critter cart (I had a bunch left over from Jaydens b-day invites).

(2nd page)

(close up of the card front)

Today's cruise Itinerary:

7:00 Arrive at Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos
3:00-5:00 freshening up in the room and some alone time. :)
5:00 - 6:00 pm Cricut Imagine Project
6:00 - 8:00 pm Time to explore the ship! or catch a show!
8:00 pm Dinner together with the Cricut Crew!
9:00 - 11 pm Open Crop and Make n Take with Provocraft!
11:00 pm Dance the night away!

The ship is heading to San Juan, Puerto Rico tomorrow and will arrive in the afternoon! Have sweet crafting dreams everyone!

February 27, 2011

Well, we're on the cruise ship on our way to the Grank Turk, Turks & Caicos. Jen made a great 2 page layout that I hope will be something I will be doing tomorrow on the beach! I hope you enjoy her project. Be sure to comment on the post below and let her know what you think!

I will also be updating my blog so, be sure to become a follower on this blog by clicking the follow button to the right. Also, I will be updating my facebook fan page and you can also find the link on the right hand side bar.

I think Jen can smell my Hawaiian Tropic oil suntan lotion! LOL How could she know that I would be applying some on the cruise ship next to the pool? I do think she has a great idea for my next drink order too! See below what she suggests!

Now, without further ado, here is Jen's project....

Still fresh off my summer dreaming from last weeks project I couldn't wait to jump right into this weeks. I still had some scraps left over I could use and with part of this challenge we were asked to use the same colors as last week! Our mission, if we chose to accept, it was to make 2 layout pages 5 3/4 by 8 3/4 for a landscape photo with the inspiration of 'beach'. I had tropical beaches and flowers and bleached out wood in my mind for this one. I really had this one done in no time flat!
I cut my two pages and then added the place for the photo.
Layered it up with a few more colors.
Added in my flowers (accent essentials) then embellished them with sequins and buttons. Don't forget the words 'Beach Bums' HA! (pick your favorite font cartridge or stickers)
I think these would also make cute layouts to put in a picture frame!
~*Recipe*~
~*scrap DCWV cardstock
~*misc cut flowers from different Cricut Cartridges (accent essentials, george & basic shapes, gypsy wanderings)
~*sequins and buttons
~*sticker letters (or favorite font cartridge)
I can almost smell the Hawaiian Tropic sun tan oil and Pina Coladas...ahhhhhhh
~*Jen*~

SweetSassyDiva Cruise Itinerary:

9:30 - 11:30 AM Cricut Imagine Class with Joy

3 1/2 hours to catch some rays on the pool deck and perhaps some fine dining or something pool side. I hear that a few drinks can equal a meal too! It has to be 5 pm ....SOMEWHERE in the world! Oh yes indeed it is!!! Europe!! whoo hoo!!!

9:00 -11 PM Open Crop and Make n' Take. I wonder if they kick us out? Although with all that fun and sun....I'm sure I'll be ready for a nap! Or we could catch the Midnight snack or even room service if we're still hungry. Oh not sure if the 30+ lbs that I lost will remain when I get off the boat! lol

I'm thinking that between the islands and all that there is to do on the ship not even counting all the available crop and class time that I will need to sleep when I get home for a week straight! :) Oh...and that's not counting the romance with my darling husband! :grins:

Well, we left home at 1:50 pm Friday heading to the airport for our 4 pm flight.

Here is the view from home... Snow! It is in the 80's in Ft. Lauderdale.

So our driver arrives to take us to the airport and hopefully we have everything. Either way no time for any last minute items.

We arrive in time at the airport and we pre-checked our bag and all was go online or was it?

Sadly, we find out at 2:30 pm at the checkin that the flight to Cleveland, oh was cancelled. Wth?! Seems due to another winter storm in ohio that they cancelled flights. Now, the fun begins!

We are told all sorts of things and it looks like the cruise will not happen for us.

Finally, the checkin gets assistance and we are told we can drive 2.5 hours to Chicago to fly out Saturday morning. The glitch is that it would not arrive in time for the cruise.

So after much assistance they switch us from continental to delta. They find a 6:43 pm flight to Atlanta, ga but, the kicker is it has a connection 9.5 hours later. Cropping in the Atlanta airport I guess!

We decided to get a late lunch as we had plenty of time to burn. Here is my healthy Caesar salad.

So, we were supposed to leave at 4 pm but, delayed now on another airline and flight departing at 6:43 pm or will it?

Nope! Here is the line up at the gate to reschedule connecting flights. There is my darling husband waiting to check our fate. After a number of delays, it appears that it will be departing for Atlanta at 7:40 pm. I sure hope so!

I'm starting to feel like Jen's flights from Alaska! The plane is on it's way in and I notice our seats aren't even by each other! :shakes head: it's starting to feel like a bad sitcom episode!

Thankfully, my darling husband was able to fix it. My hero!

Yea! The plane is finally here and the passengers are getting ready to hop off. They announce that we should hurry and stow our bags and perhaps those fortunate enough with connections might make them. Although that doesn't apply to us.

Haha false alarm! After the passengers are all off the plane, they announce that there is a maintenance issue with a blue light. So, further delay while the maintenance crew is called in. Any ideas how long of a delay for this one?

Thankfully it was not long at all.

Yea! Our plane is off now for Atlanta! I haven't been there yet although the plan was Cleveland. I just hope we make Ft. Lauderdale in time to board the hotel shuttle for the cruise.

We enjoyed some peanuts and a drink on the plane. It has wifi but, seems like the airport it has a monthly subscription fee. I guess Jen lucked out with free wifi on her flight but, I am not feeling so lucky today.

On board we hear there was a connecting flight so I don't know why we had to have an overnight layover. Ah what fun!

Yea! We arrive in Atlanta!

Here we wait for the hotel shuttle.

Seems dinner only consisted of the bag of peanuts. We tried the snack machine at the hotel but, the only one to eat was the machine. I hope it enjoyed my money.

So we finally found our hotel at about midnight catching about four hours of sleep. My darling caught much less. Seems he was stressed hoping that we make the flight. At least he was able to shave and shower. No breakfast and we were on our way to the airport at 5:30 am.

We checked in curbside to avoid the stress and mess of trying to check in. Unfortunately, he was unable to print our boarding pass. He assisted us inside to complete our check in. Apparently, as our tickets came with our first and middle names smooshed together without spaces, he couldn't check us in. I would have thought the agent would know that as it's their profession but, luckily they found someone to correct it.

Now this airport reminded me of Frankfurt. Ok perhaps it is also how Chicago would be now as well. I have not flown out of there for a while. Although the train reminded me of Chicago.

Here is my darling on the train at the Atlanta airport last night. You can see how tired he is but, still smiling at me.

Now for some fun! We head to security! We made the mistake of listening to the lady directing the line and rather than going right she directed the lot of us to the left. Now for some fun! Be sure to check the Internet porn sites for our TSA body scans! Yep! I guess they should have offered up a honeymoon portrait package special to put in my mini album of my travels. There was no choice in it! I still had to have a pat down on top of it. How truly special I feel! Now I can check off a frisk and TSA scan off my bucket list.

We headed to our gate and funny is the gate numbering made us think that we would have a close gate. Nope it was reverse numbering and gate 2 was way down.

On the way, there are interesting machines. Here is one for best buy with all sorts of electronics.

Luickily, the flight left at time and was full! They had a bunch of stand by passengers. I think all were able to board. It sure had all the overhead bins full. So packed with our jackets we are on our way to Ft. Lauderdale.

The flight gave us our breakfast consisting of a sugar biscuit. Happily the flight attendant found me some peanuts. I think I must be on the flight diet which consists of water or beverage and peanuts! I wonder if my body is going into starvation mode or if I lost a few pounds! Lol. Hopefully we get a nice lunch. The important thing is we are on our way! :)

They had cute little monitors in the seat backs.

Just like the wifi, it seems it costs to view anything.

They did have an old episode of glee! Unfortunately, it seems you need headphones. I'm not sure of conventional headphones work.

February 25, 2011

I was a fortunate winner or rather earned this trip for a 7 day cruise of the caribbean! It's great that it just so happens to be coinciding with our 10 year wedding anniversary! :). We haven't had a real vacation in over 8 years and that was an anniversary trip to London and some surrounding points of interest.

We will be traveling with Provocraft in the Eastern Caribbean.

They will be visiting grand turk, Turks & Caicos, San Juan, puerto Rico, St. Thomas, and the Bahamas.

The hello Thursday ladies will be doing classes on the days we are at sea. It seems that most of the classes are with the Cricut Imagine but, there is also a class with the Cricut Expression. Oh and I guess those scared of the Gypsy will also have one class using it to cut vinyl. I wonder how that will work with those not owning a Gypsy. Hopefully, they will have some on loan during the class.

This is the same cruise that last year the winners received the coveted golden Cricut.

I hear that Provocraft is planning some awesome surprises and this is supposed to be even better than last year if that is even possible.

This year, they opened the cruise up to everyone that wanted to upgrade to the $300 per person fee to crop with Provocraft.

Can you believe that I got my husband to agree to crop with me? :) I think that calls for some pics and a video or two!

I just use a pen do curl with. Then you layer all the flowers together and apply a brad in the center to hold them together. I made the brad using the I-Top tool and a 16mm brad.

then I put the card together using yellow cardstock for the A2 size card and DCWV the Dots, Stipes & Plaids cardstock pad for the patterned paper. I glued the flower on the upper left corner and then used CTMH True Friends stamp for the saying. I added buttons to the bottom of the card.

February 23, 2011

This week the SweetSassyDiva DT was asked to do a color challenge based on this picture.

Perfect for beach or ocean type stuff. I made this card by taking blue strips of paper and ripping them.. then i glued them down to the card front so that it looked similar to waves or maybe motion in the ocean LOL. I took a sandy colored paper and did the same thing at the bottom. Using the Life's A Beach cart I cut out the fish in different sizes from 1in - 2in. All of my paper is from Recollections. I love bright colors so I have tons of bright color paper and cardstock. I glued the fish down in different places and put google eyes on them.. extra small and small sizes. And I wrote the sentiment at the top with a blue zig marker. Hope you like it!

For this card I found these stack of gifts on the original cartridge Birthday Bash and used the Hopscotch colors to fill in all the layers (cut @4 inches). For my 1st patterned background I filled in a stock image that comes standard on the Imagine with a pattern from hopscotch it was cut @ 5.5 inches, the second and smaller square was cut @ 5 inches.

I inked all the edges with "spiced marmalade" and before I glued on the top layer I added my ribbon. As you can see from this original photo, once the card was put together I went back in and changed the ribbon.

Then I used "Walnut stain" to stamp my sentiment (from a set all Mega Mixed Messages).

I added stickles to make the detail pop....

Hope you like my little birthday card! Happy crafting!

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February 21, 2011

Its like Christmas in July but more like summer in February in my house the last few days. We were asked to create something with the tropical colors of teal blue, hot pink, orange and lime green. I at first hauled out my card makin' goods and started to plan out a card. In the middle of my card planning process I stopped and said "Hey I got a better idea!". So I put away my card makings stuff (gasp, shock, drop mouth) and decided on making a fun album. We do tons of stuff durring the summer and I would love to make a little album with one picture from each month.

So I picked out my tropical colors

Planned out my pages on my Gypsy. That was a little harder. It took me almost 2 hours to plan out the letter s, u, m, m, e, r. I am not that well informed on how to use all the fancy Nancy things on my Gypsy so I took 2 rectangles (george and basic shapes cartridge) and then welded them together to make one long skinny one and then welded my letters to the end (printing press cartridge).

I then cut my paper into 12x5 inch strips and put them on my mat and plugged my Gypsy into my Expresson and hit cut.

After they were cut they were all one lenght. I then layed them out staggered and made one cut. I collecyed up my scraps and drew out a template cardboard peatla thing and made 5 petal things, scored them in the centers and creased, distressed the sides and glued them together.

Found a nice premade flower with bling in the center and placed it on my cover. I clamped my album so I could make my holes for the ribbon binding.

Poked my ribbon through and tied it all up. I really love the way it turned out and cant wait to add my summer pictures to it :)

~*Recipe*~

~*6 sheets of misc DCWV cardstock

~*Printing Press Cricut Cartridge

~*Misc ribbon

~*Jen*~

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